


#8CBFFF

by 35grams (caxxe)



Series: # [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Dissociation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 02:40:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5989231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caxxe/pseuds/35grams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The commander returns from a meeting. Then, he comes back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	#8CBFFF

Words like terrible and unproductive did a disservice to describing the depths of the disaster that was this quarters' week-long budget deliberations. The commander didn't linger in the capital. He rode back to headquarters without quite buttoning his coat all the way against the winter chill, drew up cut-back notices in his office, and retired just past midnight.

He was at once too large and too small in his own skin. He hadn't showered since before the half-day's journey, and he felt it, the film of dust and smoke and greed clinging to his skin, a patina that muffled his ears to honest things and misted his eyes with the extravagances of undeserved wealth.

The water was a generous half a degree above freezing when the commander stepped in. He wondered why he deserved even that.

A dull ache bloomed in his stiff knees as he made his way back to his room. The frigid air stabbed giddily at the places on his neck and shoulders where his damp hair dripped, and distantly, he knew he should be less cavalier with his health. Nothing impressed donors less than a sickly commander. Still, he hardly felt the cold. He knew it was there, and little more. He folded his jacket on the back of a chair and thumbed at a loose stitch on a fraying wing.

All at once, he was aware of a presence in his adjoining bedroom. He didn't hear a sound, nor see. Sometimes he imagined his body knew the presence of another, of only one another, to the eternal incomprehension of his mind, but he knew it was impossible. The mind subordinated the body, and never the other way around. The body, his body, followed orders and nothing more. The body could not know what the mind could not understand.

The captain was perched against a windowsill. The curtains rippled around him, playing coy with his eyes. He was there and not there.

“How'd it go?” The captain asked. His head still leaned against the window frame, his eyes wandering the grounds below.

“It-” The commander stopped, the sound that came making clear how enthusiastically his voice had abandoned him. He cleared his throat and swallowed around a rising thickness that advertised an advancing cold as shamelessly as if the message were carved across the entirety of the western wall of the king's palace. He couldn't feel his fingers.

“I'll have more details for you and the other officers in the morning.”

The commander swallowed again, this one more painful than the last. His hands rose to the buttons of his shirt.

The captain stretched lazily. The 3DMG strap that was normally taut across his chest was loose now, the ends swaying. He couldn't say why it incensed him so deeply, something so benign.

“Secure your uniform, captain. Dismissed,” the commander said. His fingers moved clumsily over the buttons, too numb to obey his orders.

The captain turned at that. The commander turned away, not quite caring to humor the captain any longer as he fumbled with the last button before finally stripping down to his undershirt. He took his time folding it, nearly to the captain's standards, even, should he care about such a thing. He couldn't imagine why he would.

“Think my uniform's gonna fund this quarter?” The captain asked. He stepped forward, sparrow-light, moved past the commander's hands and fixed an uneven fold before sliding shut the wooden dresser. Even some inches away, warmth radiated from him. The commander deserved none of it. He'd earned none of it. He stepped back.

The captain stepped forward. He caught the commander's wrist before he could think to draw away further and brought his hand to his mouth. The commander stiffened, the sight of a parting mouth drawing flesh to itself not the most welcoming sight in their line of work. Hot breath washed over his hands. This wasn't how a captain acted with his commander.

“Sick of having ten fingers or something? Too many for you?”

The captain took his other hand as the commander deliberated what he could possibly say to this. His warmed hand prickled and stung with renewed feeling.

“Captain,” he said, pulling away, “I think it's best if-”

The captain shoved him to his bed. When the commander sat up, chest alight with indignation, the captain's palm struck him with such force that his head whipped to the side.

“You back?” the captain asked. The commander drew his brows together in confusion. Before he could speak, the captain struck him again, and again. The commander's hands grasped at his sheets where they should have risen to defend himself. He should have. He could have.

“Guess not,” the captain said. He struck him again, this time with such force that the commander nearly lost his balance and fell from the bed. And still his hands couldn't, wouldn't, rise. His chest rose and his lips parted with his heightened breath, and still he wouldn't say the words. He couldn't remember how to command, couldn't remember how to close his mouth around a single sound.

His face warmed, the sting luxuriously deep. A heavy warmth roiled in his chest before spilling into his limbs as if the captain had struck some latent reservoir beneath his skin, as if all the commotion has jostled the slumbering coals between his ribs.

“Erwin.”

The commander didn't flinch when fingers curled around his chin, when a thumb rested against his lips, when they led his face upward and the commander followed because it was the easiest thing in the world. This, he could do. There was something left in the world that he could still do.

“Erwin.”

The commander began to tremble. He hadn't in the shower, nor in the march to his quarters, nor in the entire frigid ride from the capital.

“Erwin.”

His lashes curtained the edges of his hooded eyes, and that must have been why he couldn't read the look on the captain's face, couldn't remember ever seeing one on the captain that looked quite like that. Not on the captain's. But on-

“Levi,” Erwin sighed. His breath rattled in his chest. “Thank you.”

Levi thumbed gently at his stinging cheeks. “Are you back?”

Erwin nodded in between tremors. “I'm here,” he said as Levi wrapped his arms around his violently trembling frame.

“I'm back,” Erwin said against his chest. He was so cold.

 


End file.
